Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali gets life sentence for role in Tunisian killings

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/13/tunisian-court-punishment-zine-al-abidine-ben-ali

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A military court has sentenced former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to life in prison in connection with the killing of 23 demonstrators by police during the revolt that sparked the Arab spring.

The victims, now commemorated as "martyrs of the revolution", were among 132 protesters killed nationwide in the weeks leading up to Ben Ali's overthrow on 14 January 2011.

The mixed panel of military and civilian judges pronounced Ben Ali guilty of complicity in murder and attempted murder.

Prosecuting lawyers had sought to prove there were high-level orders to kill protesters. However, lawyers on both sides said they were disappointed that investigating magistrates had failed to reconstruct the exact sequence of events in the hours leading up to the deaths.

Most of the 23 young people died in the towns of Kasserine and Thala, as the police used guns over three days of disturbances. Hundreds were injured by police bullets.

A separate case still being heard in Tunis concerns demonstrators killed in the capital and elsewhere.

The case was heard in a regional military court in the north-western city of Kef. Among the 22 defendants were Ben Ali's two last interior ministers and four of his senior security service chiefs, including Ali Seriati, the former director general of the presidential guard. Security service officers of various levels made up the remainder of the defendants.

After former interior minister Rafik Haj Kacem was sentenced to 12 years in prison, his lawyer said he would appeal. The other former interior minister, Ahmed Friaa, was acquitted, as was Seriati and former riot police chief Moncef Laajimi, provoking anger among victims' relatives.

Earlier in the day, a military court for the Tunis area sentenced Ben Ali to 20 years in prison in a case concerning the deaths of four men in the coastal town of Ouardanine, south of the capital, on 15 January 2011.

The Kef trial was regarded as a major test of how well the Tunisian legal system can deliver convincing investigations and verdicts. As Tunisia's Islamist-led government, elected in October, launches a process of "transitional justice" to deal with the legacy of decades of authoritarian rule, the country's law courts, once a prime instrument of repression, will be called on to deliver justice in some major cases.

The charges of conspiracy, in the absence of a Tunisian law on establishing ultimate "command responsibility", had hampered successful prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said in a review of the case ahead of the verdicts.

A civilian court sentenced Ben Ali to a total of 66 years in June last year on charges ranging from embezzlement to drug trafficking in a trial perceived by many Tunisians to be little more than a hasty show trial. The former first lady wife, Leila Trabelsi, who fled with her husband to Saudi Arabia, received 35 years for unlawful possession of money and jewellery.

It is unlikely that the sentences against Ben Ali or his wife will ever be carried out. Saudi Arabia has declined to discuss extradition and the Tunisian authorities, struggling this week to maintain stability nationwide, may not actively want the burden of having to guard such a high-profile prisoner.

A curfew remained in force for a second night on Wednesday in the Tunis area and four other regions after clashes between demonstrators and riot police broke out on Monday and continued through Tuesday morning, resulting in the death of one man.

The protesters were responding to a call for a "day of anger" by conservative Salafist Islamists after an artworks on display at an exhibition in La Marsa, north of the capital, were deemed insulting to Islam.